


six improbable things before breakfast

by orphan_account



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kittens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kittens, Christopher, and some wise words from Conrad.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [panpipe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/panpipe/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy!

Throgmorten is having kittens again. Not himself, of course - though it may as well be himself, for all the mother must see of them; Millie's gotten four squint-eyed kits since Thursday, dangling from Throgmorten's mouth like overripe fruit, and barely a minute to try to snatch a cloth to cover her skirts with before the kitten is sprawled there, its mouth wide and pink and wailing for milk.

Some enchantress she feels! sitting with about a hundred skirts spread around her on the Castle grass, halfway through what's very nearly an interesting book on magical theory in Series Seven, dropping everything to nurse some speck of fur with a milk bottle. Out at school they haven't got any cats at all; out at school, the girls are more than bad enough, and Nurse and Headmistress and all the madams and mistresses with whom Millie's learnt to live would be tearing out their hair if they had the sort of kittens to deal with that the priestesses had had at home. Not to mention the boys-

Millie shakes herself, sighs firmly, and returns her attention to the grey patch of fuzz in her lap, suckling happily at the milk. There's more important things to worry about than boys; if she's learnt nothing else over the past month, surely she's learnt that.

"Hello," says a voice, warm and golden and a little bit smug, and Millie feels a smile spread across her face without her quite meaning it to. Speaking of things that are more important than boys!

"Hello, Christopher," she says, "you'll take this kitten, won't you? Throgmorten's just brought him."

Christopher's handsome face goes drawn and pale. "I'd love to," he says, very quickly, "but I've got this enormous book to read, Gabriel's made me promise, I-"

"Oh, I've got homework as well!" says Millie, extraordinarily cheerfully. "Awful, isn't it! Homework, over hols! I shan't have any fun at all. It's really a shame. Here - no, you'll drop him, do be careful, Christopher. Here's a treat, you'll even name him. Won't that be fun! And you can give him back to Throgmorten yourself."

Christopher is holding the kitten in his hands. He looks extraordinarily alarmed. Throgmorten has formed a sort of truce with Christopher - Millie suspects that he knows that one day Christopher will be in charge of his food supply for ever - but Millie is, for reasons not a man in the Castle can divine, the only one Throgmorten trusts with his kitten; Christopher is near-certain to get a mauling in the near future. Millie smiles at him with genuine delight, picks up her skirts in one hand and her book in the other, and sails towards the Castle.

It's not that she's angry at Christopher - or not that she thinks she is. He's certainly done nothing that she ought to be angry at him for. But there's something in him that irritates her, lately - or makes her restless, and angry at her own restlessness. Her skin feels too small, lately, feels like something she nearly doesn't belong in. It feels like it did when she was first coming into her own as an enchantress - like she felt when she left the Temple.

Perhaps it's just something that happens to enchantresses when they get older. She supposes she ought to ask Flavian about it.

She's sailing up the stairs to her room - she adores sailing up the stairs in this Castle, you can really properly proceed, she could hardly do it at all when she was in Temple clothes - when she bumps into Conrad; more precisely, Conrad bumps into her, and sits down hard on the stairs, and drops at least seven books. The bookmark goes flying out of one, and Conrad looks crestfallen.

"Oh dear!" says Millie, "I'm very sorry!", and she really is very sorry; Conrad's had a wonderful time in Series Twelve, but more importantly, a wonderful time in the Castle. He's been quite nice to Millie - much nicer than either of them have been to Christopher, at any rate! - and she feels a sort of obligation to him; after all, they're both immigrants, of a sort. In any case, she certainly doesn't want to bump into him on the stairs out of exuberance.

"It's quite all right," says Conrad, though he's flipping madly through the book which the bookmark was in, searching for where he'd been reading. "Say - have you seen Christopher?"

"Yes, he's down on the Castle lawn," says Millie, "and he's got one of Throgmorten's kittens in his lap, so do be careful, at least until all the blood's flown."

"Throgmorten brought him a kitten!" says Conrad, looking up with interest. "That's new! I don't suppose he's begun to transfer his affections?"

"Not a bit," says Millie, "so don't go getting excited. Christopher came down to the lawn and I'd gotten a kitten from Throgmorten myself, so now he's got the kitten, and much good may it do him!"

Conrad's eyebrows shoot up. Millie feels her face go red. "He'll be all right," she says, a little irritably, "he's a nine-lifed enchanter, isn't he?"

"I don't think that matters much to a cat!" says Conrad, "but he'll be able to heal himself after, in any case."

"Yes," says Millie, "he will," and there's a swoop in her stomach that she doesn't quite understand - of disappointment, almost, that the marks will fade in a moment, that he won't let them stay. Which is silly; of course he'll heal himself. She just-

"Well," she says, "surely I can help you gather up these books," and bends to do just that, piling them into her arms. "Are they any good? Did you get them from the Castle library? I used to adore that library, you know."

"No," says Conrad, distracted; he's still flipping through pages in his book, trying to find the part that needs the bookmark. "No, it's for Flavian, you know. He's having me learn about emotions, if they can be affected by probability. Gabriel de Witt's enormously interested."

"Emotions?" says Millie, half-listening.

"Yes," says Conrad, "anger mostly, and grief, and so on. Most everything. Excepting love, of course."

Millie goes absolutely still.

Years later, looking back, she'll say it was then that she knew.


End file.
